An 88-year-old man who escaped from Nazi Germany and established a successful San Francisco restaurant will donate up to $8.5 million for a new health sciences complex at Dominican University of California in San Rafael, the largest gift in the university's history.
The gift from Rolf Lewis and his family will help transform Meadowlands Hall, an 1888 mansion currently used for university offices and student housing, into 30,000 square feet of classrooms, laboratories and offices for the nursing and occupational therapy departments.
"This campus, this community at this moment has the opportunity to not only receive a gift but to define health sciences for the 21st century," Dominican President Mary Marcy said Wednesday at an event to introduce Lewis and announce details of the gift.
The university first announced the gift Monday but kept the donor's identity secret until Wednesday's event.
Lewis, who owns houses in Greenbrae and San Francisco, founded the popular San Francisco restaurant, Rolf's Since 1960. He joined Dominican's board of trustees last year and established a scholarship program for nursing students. He had no prior affiliation with Dominican, but he was introduced to the university by his wife, Valerie, a nurse who once cared for elderly sisters at Our Lady of Lourdes Convent on campus.
"She is the one who led me to Dominican, this treasure of education, in the first place," Lewis said.
A native of Germany,
Lewis was exiled with his family in 1938 because his father, who was not Jewish, opposed the Nazi regime. The family spent several years in Shanghai, China, where they were confined to a 16-square-block area during World War II by the invading Japanese.He immigrated to the United States in 1947 and, with his brothers and other family members, opened several restaurants of successively larger size, leading eventually to Rolf's.
"I'm the one who is really very lucky to have found Dominican in the first place. So I am here, gratefully acknowledging your thanks. But it is really my place to thank you," Lewis told a crowd of students, professors, university supporters and public officials Wednesday.
The gift will be divided into a $2 million initial grant, $2.5 million in matching funds that are contingent on donations from others and an additional $4 million to be spent later.
University officials have not released project details. The project will include the complete renovation of Meadowlands Hall, which was originally built as a summer home for the family of San Francisco Chronicle publisher Michael H. de Young.
The building's historic characteristics will be retained, university officials said.
The project will triple the amount of space dedicated to nursing ? the university's largest program ? and occupational therapy, offerings currently scattered across five buildings on campus and a sixth off campus.
Marin County Health and Human Services Director Larry Meredith said the project could help the county and Dominican collaborate on new approaches to health care.
"We are a social laboratory for the country," he said. "What is possible in Marin ? and so much is possible ? can be exported across the country, exported around the world."
Contact Will Jason via email at wjason@marinij.com or via Twitter at http://twitter.com/willjason
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